In 1767, Alex Hamilton lived with his mother and brother in Christiansted, a grid of streets near the harbor. He was illegitimate, and was subject to scorn because of that, sometimes called an “obscene child” by people in his town.
In modern day Christiansted, there are monuments to Hamilton, and streets that bear his name. So, they’re proud of him now, I guess.
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From my window I see a large moon winking from behind the twisting and swaying black forms of treetops. The wind storm is dramatic, but so far hasn’t taken electricity. I’m sure the street and yard are littered with arboreal debris at this point.
This morning I read about the Battle of Brooklyn, summer of 1776. The account of Washington’s flight from New York made me wonder again and again how in the world Britain managed to lose the war. Was it hubris? Was it the French? (It was the French.) So many things went so wrong for America, the Continental Army faced seemingly impossible odds. Page after page detailed untrained, unfed, unmotivated soldiers, some resorting to using spears as weapons, many deserting every day, mass confusion, disease, drunkenness, incompetent officers, etc etc. There was no money to pay them, and enlistments were short and voluntary, meaning half the army could just go home when their time was up. Literally the only thing that kept us alive (besides the French), was the desire for liberty, and that was felt most passionately in people like George Washington.
I did enjoy this story from that summer: during a lull in the fighting, the two sides agreed to arrange for peace talks. A letter was written to Washington and delivered by a secretary. But the letter was addressed on the outside to “George Washington, Esq, etc etc.” Washington’s officers refused to accept the letter at all. The British were so arrogant that they wouldn’t recognize Washington’s rank as General and Commander in Chief — he was still considered a treasonous subject of the crown. This happened twice before they finally wrote his name with rank properly on the letter, “His Excellency, General Washington.” It was extremely important that he be addressed as the legitimate leader of the newly minted nation.
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A most amazing thing took place this afternoon. On my way to get some coffee, I of course wandered into a local used book store. My intention was as usual to find yet another history book or biography. Well, I did both, then took my finds to the counter, where I chatted briefly with the owner.
Once he got a sense of my true interest in history, he turned away and went to fetch something behind him. It was a small book, bound in cracked brown leather, its pages hopelessly yellow. “This is the oldest book in the store,” he said. Or possibly the oldest book in my town. He opened it and I looked at the title page.
I quickly read the year at the bottom in roman numerals. 1751. My heart began to race! May I hold it? For this may be the oldest object I have ever touched, unless you count Parisian side-streets touched by my feet. That’s how it is when you spend your life on the west coast. The pages were incredibly delicate, ruined by moisture, but still soft and intact.
There was another book, this one of even greater interest to me. It was an annual compendium of newspaper and magazine articles published in the Colonies, 1774. A digest, if you will, a “best of.” Essays, poetry, royal decrees, deaths. Gaze upon this, familiarize your eyes with strange “s” shapes and Latin, and behold, a Message From the King!
His Majesty was very upset about the destruction of a cargo of tea in Boston, and had thusly instituted a blockade to become law on June 1. I wonder how that all played out?
I also carefully turned a few pages to find this helpful advice to the Ladies.
“No longer be won by faces with brainless heads to them, or silk stockings with run-away spindle legs beneath them. Neither mistake a low bow for pure good manners; nor a powdered tortured head with a long tail for gentility; nor laced cloathes for an estate; nor servile cringing for true love; nor a smooth tongue for good sense.”
That paragraph is about men. A long tail!!! The book also contained an essay by a certain John Hancock, but I didn’t have time to read it. I promised I would be back to visit with it again.
Oh the delight I felt in reading a couple of softened, yellowed parchment pages, I was literally moved… to feel that what I have devoted countless hours of the past year to, that has lived only in my mind and in abstraction, suddenly came to life in my hands! To touch a thing that was once made in an ancient press and held by the hands of an unknown American colonist. I mean. I can scarcely find any other words except that I must and I will someday travel east.
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Sunday it snowed the whole night. Yesterday while the snow was still cold and perfectly arranged, I took a short walk, observing the way the flakes clung to every single twig, making the woods look like a row of white flocked trees. I walked to the field by my house and down a small hill to the pond, where a dozen or so ducks were floating around on the gray water, quacking to each other. The sky was completely flat and formless, and the snow was still twirling down.
I went home to do some reading. I was intrigued to learn that in the fall of 1773, George Washington’s indolent, foolish stepson Jacky Custis began his “studies” at King’s College in New York, only to drop out a few months later to get married to a wealthy 16-year-old, despite his family’s insistence that the couple wait two years. That same term, another student enrolled at King’s College on a scholarship, to voraciously study medicine, law, history, oh and everything else. That student would go on to be one of George Washington’s closest confidants, the hard-working surrogate son he had always dreamed of.
If you can’t guess who that was, you haven’t been paying attention. Or maybe you’re new here?
Posted in History | Tagged George Washington, snow | Comments Off on Duck pond
January 10, 1772:
“Believe me sir I dun as hard as is proper.” This sentence always kind of stood out to me. When read with a modern ear, one hears, “I done as hard as is proper,” and it makes him sound uneducated. But, this is Hamilton, and I don’t think he would have written such a poorly formed sentence, even at 14.
So I searched the archives for other times he might have used the word or spelling “dun.” I found none others, except for a footnote referencing a letter from his old friend Robert Troup, in 1802, to another mutual close friend, Rufus King: “Hamilton is closely pursuing the law, and I have at length succeeded in making him somewhat mercenary. I have known him latterly to dun his clients for money, and in settling an account with me the other day, he reminded me that I had received a fee for him in settling a question referred to him and me jointly.”
So then I consulted the etymology:
dun “to insist on payment of debt,” 1620s
It means “to invoice.” Of course. I also love this particular letter (the whole of which can be read here), because Hamilton, who was a day away from turning fifteen, thanks his employer for the gift of apples, which presumably had great significance for an impoverished clerk of his low station. Also he alludes to Captain Newton and his cargo of mules, which as other nerds like me will know, turns into a total debacle about three weeks later.
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Google analytics tells me that people are coming to this page, it tells me approximately when, and it tells me where you are, but it also tells me that users don’t stick around for very long. There does not seem to be a great deal of interest, which I suppose is my own fault for not bothering to generate interest, or produce interesting content. I’m undeterred! She said, to a handful of bored or possibly lost strangers.
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I finally started the massive George Washington biography, and I have a feeling it shall unfold much as the other Chernow bio did last summer, with me racing through it eagerly until its bulk causes a strain on my wrist.
Since I just finished reading about Theodore Roosevelt, I can’t help drawing comparisons. Both lost their fathers while in adolescence. Both battled illnesses in their youth (though TR much more). Both were tough as hell, naturally authoritative, and took advantage of family connections to get their starts. Both loved the outdoors, riding, and the frontier. There are of course numerous differences, too. But each was on a path to leadership from a young age.
I was glad to learn that George never wore a wig — I thought as much and I do hate it when the founders are portrayed in European-style wigs. There were a few who did, but it was not considered very fashionable at all. I am coming to realize that quite a few of the men who led the Revolution were redheads. Hamilton, Lafayette, Washington, Jefferson, all a bunch of gingers. What could it mean????
Posted in Books and Reading | Tagged George Washington | Comments Off on Here Comes the General
I just finished Sarah Vowell’s collection of essays, “The Partly Cloudy Patriot”, while sitting at my living room window. Big snowflakes drifted heavily outside, most of them struggling to gain a foothold before melting into the pavement. It’s typical western Washington snow, more annoying than anything else — as opposed to being fun or dangerous.
Sarah Vowell has kind of turned into an idol of mine, though I must somehow look past her statement that she prefers Thomas Jefferson to George Washington. Perhaps she has atoned for that in the fifteen years that have elapsed since this book was published. Actually I am rather worried for her mental state these past few months; I hope she’s doing okay.
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Removing most social media and television from my life — in effect scaling back screen time — has also produced two interesting side effects. First, I noticed that I now engage in much less shopping for unnecessary items. Perhaps I am now more intentional in how I use my time, so I don’t fall into mindless shopping patterns anymore? It sure has saved a lot of money.
I am also somehow sleeping better. I can’t prove that conclusively, but it feels as though the waking up in the middle of the night then laying there restlessly for two hours thing seems to have become less frequent. It is known that light exposure to screens in particular at night has a stimulative effect on the brain. Also to be quite honest, reducing these two mediums has lowered my anxiety by a lot.
I still like TV, I suppose I will watch if something good comes along. I am a big nerd for Antiques Roadshow and historical things and smart comedies. I used to like social media too, but “something” has destroyed that for me in recent weeks/months, and I am actually kind of pissed about that. But I’ll live. There are many other avenues for connection, you see.
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We the people have always been more loyal to our states than our nation, let’s be real. I think that’s pretty normal. Who can identify on a personal level with a 3000-mile wide mass of land? Hamilton thought states should be devalued because it would bring greater unity to the country, and that was easy for him because he wasn’t from any of the states. But he lost that fight, and we remain a land divided by many borders, each containing unique cultures with unique “rights.” There is no uniting us. We don’t have any thing left to bind us together, except an idea of liberty and freedom, which I suppose people interpret how they wish.
I read an essay by Sarah Vowell this morning about maps, especially antique maps. She worked in a gallery in SF that dealt in such artifacts. I love old maps from before humans achieved flight. They are so wildly inaccurate and disproportionate. In this map from 1715, California is shown as a huge island, and the place where I’m from was “Parts Unknown.” Cuba and the rest of the West Indies are huge, because if they showed them to scale they would mostly be tiny dots.
I found a 1767 map of St. Croix, beautifully drawn and colored, with little pictures of ships and anchors and lovely handwriting. The entire island is covered with sugar plantations, then there is a tiny harbor on the north side, with a small grid of streets and lots of docks where ships would arrive and depart constantly. When this map was published, little Alex Hamilton was living there with his mom and brother, helping her out in the small shop she managed. Today, the slave auction blocks and fields of sugar cane have been replaced with golf courses and resort hotels.
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